Abortion Rights Group Plans to Pull Ad on Roberts

By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG

Published: August 12, 2005

CORRECTION APPENDED

Under pressure to withdraw an advertisement that describes Judge John G. Roberts Jr. as ''one whose ideology leads him to excuse violence against other Americans,'' an abortion rights advocacy group announced Thursday night that it would replace the advertisement, which had drawn widespread criticism as being false and misleading.

The advocacy group, Naral Pro-Choice America, announced its decision in a letter to Senator Arlen Specter, the Pennsylvania Republican who is chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and a longtime supporter of abortion rights. Earlier in the day, Mr. Specter urged Naral to withdraw the 30-second spot, calling it ''blatantly untrue and unfair.''

In the letter to Mr. Specter, Naral's president, Nancy Keenan, said that the debate over the spot had ''become a distraction from the serious discussion we hoped to have with the American public.''

Ms. Keenan said her group would continue to oppose Judge Roberts's nomination to the Supreme Court and would ''continue to educate the public about the threat we firmly believe Mr. Roberts's elevation to the Supreme Court would have on American women's reproductive health and, ultimately, their lives.''

The advertisement, which centered on Judge Roberts's involvement in an abortion-related Supreme Court case in the early 1990's and linked him with support for violent protesters at abortion clinics, became the first flashpoint in the confirmation debate. Naral's decision to pull it was a victory for backers of Judge Roberts, who had run a counteradvertisement in his defense.

The Naral advertisement, which cost $500,000, began running Wednesday morning on cable television stations across the country and broadcast stations in Rhode Island and Maine, states that are home to centrist Republican senators who support abortion rights. The replacement campaign, which Naral officials said would begin on Monday, will examine Judge Roberts's records on several points, the officials said, including an argument he made as a government lawyer in 1991 that Roe v. Wade was ''wrongly decided.''

The advertisement had prompted intense criticism from Republicans, a handful of Democrats, an independent watchdog group called Factcheck.org, and even some supporters of abortion rights, who said they felt it was hurting their cause. Mr. Specter made that argument in his letter to Ms. Keenan.

The senator wrote, ''When Naral puts on such an advertisement, in my opinion it undercuts its credibility and injures the pro-choice cause.''

Some prominent Democrats said they agreed with Mr. Specter. Lanny Davis, a top official in the Clinton administration, said in an interview Thursday that he had been making phone calls to liberal advocacy groups urging them to denounce the advertisement, which he called ''inaccurate, filled with innuendo and shameless.''

The advertisement centered on an argument Judge Roberts made to the Supreme Court in the case of Bray v. Alexandria Women's Health Clinic, which the court heard when Judge Roberts was working in the first Bush administration as deputy solicitor general.

At the time, abortion clinics had become the target of increasingly violent demonstrations by a group called Operation Rescue. The question before the court was whether federal judges could put a stop to those protests by invoking an 1871 law that was intended to protect freed slaves from the Ku Klux Klan.

Mr. Roberts filed a friend-of-the-court brief and argued successfully that the Ku Klux Klan Act did not apply. The case was particularly appalling to abortion rights advocates because the lead plaintiff, Michael Bray, had been convicted of clinic bombings.

Mr. Roberts's actions in the case became controversial in the summer of 1991, after a particularly violent spate of protests at abortion clinics in Wichita, Kan. In an interview on ''The MacNeil-Lehrer NewsHour'' at the time, Mr. Roberts defended himself, saying,

''What we did not do is take a position supporting the activities of the Operation Rescue protesters. There's been some confusion about that, and I want it to be clear.''

In its advertisement Naral linked the Bray case with a subsequent clinic bombing. The 30-second spot opened with a scene after the bombing of an abortion clinic in Birmingham, Ala., in 1998 -- years after Judge Roberts argued the Supreme Court case -- and features Emily Lyons, a clinic employee who was severely injured. ''When a bomb ripped through my clinic, I almost lost my life,'' Ms. Lyons says.

Then Mr. Roberts's image appears, superimposed over a faint copy of his legal brief. ''Supreme Court nominee John Roberts filed court briefs supporting violent fringe groups and a convicted clinic bomber.'' a voice says. It concludes: ''Call your senators. Tell them to oppose John Roberts. America can't afford a justice whose ideology leads him to excuse violence against other Americans.'' The advertisement clearly put Democrats in an uncomfortable position, and many of them, including members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, remained largely silent during the fury over it.

Senator Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, the ranking Democrat on the committee, said in an interview with The Associated Press that he wished interest groups on both sides of the aisle would stop their advertising campaigns.

''I am not saying they shouldn't do what they do,'' Mr. Leahy was quoted as saying. ''I just wish they didn't.''

Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, said in an interview Thursday that he had not seen the advertisement.

Correction: August 13, 2005, Saturday
An article on Wednesday about comments by Judge John G. Roberts Jr. on the evolution of law governing end-of-life issues surrounding the Terri Schiavo case misstated a word in a 1928 Supreme Court dissent by Justice Louis D. Brandeis cited by Judge Roberts. The opinion spoke of ''the right to be let alone'' -- not ''left'' alone.

The article also misstated the year in which Judge Roberts filed a brief with the Supreme Court arguing, successfully, that a century-old antidiscrimination statute could not be used to quash protests at abortion clinics. It was 1991, not 1971.

The article also referred incorrectly to Michael Bray, a plaintiff in that case, Bray v. Alexandria Women's Health Clinic. (This error also occurred in some copies yesterday, in an article about an anti-Roberts advertisement placed and then withdrawn by Naral Pro-Choice America.) Mr. Bray, who had been convicted of abortion-clinic bombings, was just one of seven plaintiffs; the lead plaintiff was his wife, Jayne.